New Super Mario Bros.

"Nintendo pulls a Super Mario Sunshine to a slightly lesser extent. Slightly."

Introduction:

New Super Mario Bros. is, as one might expect, a new iteration of the timeless sidescrolling series known as Super Mario Bros., and it is also one of the most anticipated games that has appeared on a Nintendo system for a good long while. And hey, it should be; ever since Super Mario World for the SNES, the business of sidescrolling video games starring the famously short, fat plumber known as Mario has been put on hold, making for a wait of approximately a decade and a half. So, finally, a new chapter in the Mario series has been unveiled, but does it live up to its glory days? God knows that the hype did.

In short: No. New Super Mario Bros. proves to be a disappointment, much like Super Mario: Sunshine was in the Gamecube's early days. In other words, it is a dumbed down combination of Super Mario World and Super Mario Bros. 3, two of Mario's (arguably) best 2D adventures.

Story: 1/10

Even by Mario's standards, it is obvious that this game assumed that nobody gives a crap about story in sidescrolling games anymore. Sure, there is some truth in that, but they still could have done more than “Baby Bowser has kidnapped the princess. Uh, yeah, that's pretty much it.” Overall, it doesn't have much weight in the score, but it does seem to make the game slightly more… cheaply made, in a way.

Game-play: 6/10

Understandably, this is where New Super Mario Bros. loses most of its points. The game essentially takes the old Super Mario Bros. 3 and Super Mario World game-play and makes a few changes. That is to say, about three major ones, anyway.

#1— Newer Mario abilities such as wall jumping, ground pounding, and even triple jumping, all taken directly from Mario's 3-d adventures, are added to give the game a more modern Mario feel. They certainly don't take all that much away from the game-play (at least at first glance), but they don't exactly allow the game enough reason to give merit to the message of innovation that should have been the driving force behind the entire concept of the game. Otherwise, why would they put the word “New” in front of the title? Right? To be honest, the wall-jumping aspect is pretty nice in my book, though triple jumping is horribly useless and ground-pounding closes more doors than it opens for the game-play. Remember resorting to Koopa shells in order to break blocks that lay on the ground and such? With ground-pounding, that's been put to an end. Plus, bosses are even easier to defeat, taking only 2 hits if you ground-pound them (and that really isn't too hard). Thank you, ground-pound.

#2— New power-ups. Under normal circumstances, this would, in fact, be quite refreshing. However, New Super Mario Bros. struggles in this category in comparison to its early counterparts (see: every other Super Mario game).

First to be mentioned is the Mega mushroom. Yes, in most cases, above-average height is moderately impressive, but in this game it's either horribly cheap or utterly useless. Upon finding a Mega mushroom, Mario grows to about half the size of the DS screen, going on an insane rampage and crushing everything to the right of the screen. You may find yourself picking up 2 to 5 1ups after trampling the denizens of one of the many stages in this game, thus cutting the difficulty to almost nil. What's worse is that you can, from time to time, collect a Mega mushroom to save in reserve, which allows you to activate it at any time during a stage. Obviously, this means that any difficult part that may somehow be found in the game is made incredibly easy, and any boss is brought to its knees as soon as Mario comes into contact with it, but it also means that you may end up wasting it completely, making the Mega mushroom a completely hit-or-miss item. And no, that doesn't make it a fair one. Trust me.

Secondly we have the Mini mushroom. This power-up gives Mario the ability to be even shorter. Amazing as it seems, this power-up actually does more for the overall game-play than the Mega mushroom, allowing for high, floaty jumps, travel through small pipes and other passages, and even the ability to run on water. It isn't exactly creative, but it isn't terrible, either.

Finally, there's the Blue Koopa Shell, arguably the best of the new items. Unfortunately, it too is unoriginal (at least the game is consistent). The Blue Shell is basically a combination of a watered-down version of the Tanookie and Frog suits from Super Mario Bros. 3, with the added ability to skid across the ground and ricochet off of walls like an ordinary koopa shell. Once again, it isn't exactly original, but it's probably the best new power-up in the game.

I don't know why, but Nintendo expected us to be content with these three power-ups almost exclusively, as the fire flower and mushroom items are the only remaining items from the earlier games. This would be fine by me, if the power-ups were not only good, but original; the Fire Flower still reigns as the best power-up in the game, which is sad when the Blue Shell is a combination of two of the greatest power-ups in gaming history. Of course, the Fire Flower presents some problems of its own, now, just like everything else in this game.

#3-- Nintendo decided to add a checkpoint system to the game. This sounds convenient, but really works against the game, if anything (just like just about every new ability Nintendo gave to Mario). The stages themselves aren't exactly difficult, beyond a few late stages which can give a challenge on the first or second try. Of course, anyone who has played through Super Mario Bros. 3 or even the substantially easier Super Mario World would find this game ridiculously easy, even ignoring the laugh in my face that is the halfway checkpoint.

So those are the 3 main changes that Nintendo made to their top series over a period of more than a decade. Other than that, there are maybe 1 or 2 truly original aspects to the game, but none of them are impressive enough to mention.

Graphics: 9/10

The graphics are basically a combination of updated 2-D background scenery and obstacles and Super Mario 64 DS-style 3-D graphics of Mario, Luigi, various enemies, and each of the bosses. This is one department that I really can't say anything against. I'd say that it's proof that, despite the DS's less-than-impressive overall visuals (in comparison to the PSP's, anyway), Nintendo isn't just going to disregard graphics. So, while it doesn't hold much weight in the overall score, it does help make the game a heck of a lot more appealing.

Sound: 9/10

Once again, Nintendo doesn't miss the boat this time. The sound – and everything about the sound, mind you, including both must and sound effects—is both true to the old Mario games' spirit and, in its own way, makes every good use of the capabilities that the DS has to offer. Unfortunately, this too does not change much for the overall score of the game – it would have been so nice if Nintendo focused on what it always did in the first place; innovative, fresh game-play. Alas.

Difficulty: 4/10

This game is approximately as easy and short as the average Kirby game, and it certainly doesn't have as many unlockable secrets. The stages are all quite dry, because you've seen 95% of them in at least one of the other Super Mario games. I can honestly say that I've seen fewer all-new stages in New Super Mario Bros. than in Super Mario Bros. 3. That's right; more suprises await you in a game that is nearly 20 years old than in New Super Mario Bros, which should have, by Nintendo's standards, had all of that and more.

Of course, even in the stages that are original (and, naturally, in the ones that aren't), there's just about no way that you can possibly lose more than two or three lives on any given stage, even in the later worlds. How could you, between the broken Mega mushroom, overall easy stages, checkpoints, and easy-to-collect power-ups? Let me get something straight—Super Mario Bros. 3 was a great game. Yes, it had short stages, but they were difficult, and you couldn't access power-ups like candy. Super Mario World – perhaps even greater than Super Mario Bros. 3—had easier access to power-ups, but the stages were far longer and still retained quite a bit of their original difficulty.

New Super Mario Bros., by previous example, should have had, say, Super Mario Bros. 3's system of reserving items, in which you could only activate items in between stages. It could have at least made the stages moderately difficult to actually make the checkpoint system somewhat justified.

But no; Nintendo babies the average gamer with every “convenient” feature that they could possibly shove into the game. That means easy stages in bite-sized pieces, in which you are tested to get hit 6 or more times, much less lose much more than 1 life. Not only that, but the bosses are absolutely pathetic. They now take only two hits if you ground pound them, as I previously mentioned. In fact, the recurring miniboss in Super Mario Bros. 3 not only puts its New Super Mario Bros. counterpart Bowser Junior to shame, but at least one full-fledged boss, as well. I'm serious. That's not where it ends, though; Mega Mushrooms being held in reserve can make every boss even easier to defeat, as if that's somehow necessary.

Replay value: 4/10

There are extra stages and 200 or so special coins to collect, but all that means is that you now have an obligation to explore every rehashed stage in the game for three magical coins in order to unlock special stages with features that you've seen before in Super Mario [insert game name here]. In case it wasn't obvious, they're nothing like Super Mario World's challenging stages where even pumping Mario full of power-ups didn't come close to guaranteeing success.

Overall: 6/10

New Super Mario Bros. is similar to Super Mario Sunshine, in that it fails to bring something new and refreshing to the table. They differ, though, because Sunshine actually tried to add something new, simply failing to add a feature that meshed with the Mario franchise effectively. New Super Mario Bros., on the other hand, simply failed to even attempt to bring anything to the table at all. That said, it isn't a horrible game, but in the end it's just a poor man's SMB3 or SMW. Let's hope that Super Paper Mario brings along a new aspect that both works smoothly and ends up making the game a refreshing successor to the sidescrolling Mario series. If so, then that's the closes thing we'll ever really get to a New Super Mario Bros.

Rent or Buy?

Rent. This is the worst Super Mario Bros. game ever released, but it's still worth a play, I suppose. Of course, it only takes about 2 or 3 days of moderate play to do so. Whether you decide to play it or not, though, just wait for Super Paper Mario for a true, new Super Mario Bros. experience.

The Bottom Line:

I don't know why, but Nintendo seems to somehow think that we actually needed a complete bastardization of what was formerly one of the most respected games in history. When people think “game,” they either think of Monopoly or Mario. I pray that the former doesn't have a watered down sequel called “New Monopoly,” in which you can cheat the IRS and spend the night at Free Parking instead of some ritzy hotel, if you so choose.

Honestly, if New Super Mario Bros. was twice as difficult as it is now, it would just be Super Mario Bros. 3.1 – a fun game, but certainly not deserving of its true title. At the same time, if NSMB lived up to the message of innovation that Nintendo has been going on about these days, and had more all-new features and other such additions, it would just be another Kirby game (and we're getting a couple of those, anyway). New Super Mario Bros. claims neither of these, however, and therefore ends up as a cheap, easy imitation of two of the greatest games of all time. Fun? Yes. Worth 35 bucks? Hell no. If you have any other Mario title in your possession, then you have no business getting anywhere near New Super Mario Bros. beyond a rent.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 07/27/06